


I HOLD NO LOVE FOR THIS SKY

by silkensong



Category: Pokemon Ranger
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, POV Second Person, References to attempted murder, god returned to me pokemon ranger: guardian signs and i spat out this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28268298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkensong/pseuds/silkensong
Summary: Here is something that you remember: falling. Here is something else: what it feels like to fly.
Relationships: Minami | Summer & Natsuya | Ben
Kudos: 5





	I HOLD NO LOVE FOR THIS SKY

**Author's Note:**

> hi. hello. if you are reading this i can only assume you have very niche tastes, like myself, or are simply starved for content.

Blue Eyes sinks her submarine.

You are, as much as you can be, prepared for her Feraligatr to attack. One of the Treecko from in front of the Old Mansion is still traveling with you, and for all that Pichu is young you know it can hold its own in battle. This is more a test of your own abilities than it is your partner’s.

You are able to capture it. In your mind’s eye you see the sigil: three overlapping triangles built from a single line, and you trace the shape until it is burnt into your memory. You must add it to the styler’s register later─that Feraligatr’s charges had been wild and vicious, perfect to help in the event of a rockslide. (You hope that you will not encounter a rock slide, but your track record is not exactly that good.)

In any case─you capture the Feraligatr. Calm it. “It’s alright,” you murmur, as low and soothing as you can, “you can leave, don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.” It leaves. From the corner of its watchful eye you see it staring out, beady and baleful, not at you but at Blue Eyes. One of the grunts has a Totodile in her arms.

“Plan Z.” Blue Eyes orders. The grunt shoots her a wary look, but obeys. What is a choice when you could get rid of the ranger and not see the results? 

Silent and wary, you wonder what Plan Z is. (Your stomach churns. You know what it is: Plan Z is the unsalvageable one, the last alternative, the one that is not meant to be executed. Plan Z is meant for execution.)

Slowly, slowly, the ship begins to sink. And then that slowly becomes faster and faster and your head is spinning and Summer lets out a short gasp, because she knows what this is, too─and then everything goes dark, and quiet, and still.

There is the hissing of a burst pipe. Summer’s shaking you awake, soft but frantic, hissing, “Ben, Zapdos above, please wake up,” and you make a quiet noise to show her that you’re listening. Pichu squeaks. Its ukulele is floating in the water and─oh, God, there’s water in the ship, the ship which is rapidly sinking, the ship which you are still in. 

“Fuck,” you say, even though you knew this would happen. “She sank the ship. Of course she sank the ship.”

Summer laughs, but it sounds disbelieving, too. Like salt water is filling up her lungs, the spaces between her fingers. “I can’t believe it either.” Like neither of you has anything left to lose. 

Beneath you, Pichu hops into the water-flooded ship. Its cheeks spark with electricity, but there is no discharge, and after it has grabbed its ukulele and plucked at the strings there is nothing but a short, sad sound.

Just you and Summer, then, against this shipwreck that feels like the end of the world. Neither of you has a Staraptor with you so that you can fly out. But there is Pichu, and the Marill from Dolce Island is somewhere here, too, and that weight will be enough to carry you out. It has to be.

(You make it out. Of course you do. You escape, and Summer escapes. This time, Blue Eyes is not trapped, but a grunt still needs your help. _Bleed enough_ , they whisper, as you drag a crate away from them, _and the sharks will find you, boy-hero._ )

The submarine had been both nothing and everything like the Old Mansion. “Which scared you more?” Summer asks, when you’re sat back in Mitonga Village and watching that magician perform for the children. “The mansion, or… that?”

“The mansion,” you say, and aren’t afraid to admit it. “I’ve always hated Dusclops. That, and the flying plates, and the floor that went out under you, and all the Golbat. The only good thing about that place was the Espeon.”

And the Wooper, you will say later. But this is not later, and you have not met Suicune, and you do not know about the Wooper yet. 

Blue Eyes has set legendary beasts to attack you, has cornered you and hurt you and attempted to kill not only you but every living person on that submarine. Still, you are more scared of the Dusclops: what would be worse, you wonder, knowing you are dying, or suddenly feeling yourself being compressed into something not-quite-right and spat back out something different?

Red Eyes terrifies you, in that way that Blue Eyes could not.

Your memories of him are vivid and strong: staring down at you from that vicious flier he has, his laugh when he had attacked, falling, falling, being swept along towards the shore and feeling like you are drowning. You are lucky to have made it out alive. Summer is lucky to still be alive.

His Charizard roars, and the heat of its fire breath ripples over you; what you wouldn’t give for a faster flying Pokémon, one that could easily avoid its sudden ramming charges. Staraptor are some of the fastest Pokémon around, so there’s not much you can do about it─just hope that your agility can avoid the sheer force of Charizard’s attacks, and pray that you can escape unscathed.

And then Red Eyes laughs and says, “you’re going to fall again, ranger. You’ll fall again and this time you won’t be so lucky.” Your body freezes with a fear not your own. Suddenly all you can see is the twisting clouds and your plummeting Staraptor and the pillars you’d stared at beneath the sea, wondering why the fall hadn’t killed you. They had been painted in stripes of green and gold that glowed strangely where the sunlight filtered through.

Blue Eyes tried to kill you once, and you came out unscathed. Red Eyes has tried to kill you twice, and both times he has almost succeeded. 

The first time, it had been the shots against your Staraptor. It had been the wind whipping around you and the fall into the ocean below. The second time, it is his Typhlosion’s roar and the snow melting around you, the way that every time you think of fire you think of burning. Both: there is a familiar terror spilling over your spine like you have been doused in cold water. Both: Red Eyes laughing; you are so afraid that you cannot move for fear you will collapse.

_Normal_ , you tell yourself, tracing the shape glowing at the base of Articuno’s nest. _It is normal to be afraid._ Red Eyes’ Typhlosion is long since gone, the man himself flown off somewhere distant. You don’t know where the pinchers’ base of operations is, nor do you know how they always manage to flee so fast. Maybe you aren’t as good at your job as you had hoped.

And that’s a wonder, isn’t it? You’ve always admired that Ranger from Almia─the one who stopped some disasters, and then some more, and then vanished from the public eye─like stopping a Pokémon causing a blizzard, or a rampaging tyrant, and, well, you’ve kind of done that. You’ve stopped a rampaging Raikou, at least. That will have to be enough for now.

So. You calm the Raikou on Renbow Island’s wireless tower, and then when you make it to the Daybreak Ruins of Mitonga Island you calm Entei, too. At the top of Faldera Volcano a Moltres spits fire at you, and it sounds like Red Eyes is laughing somewhere behind you, when you have to duck out of the way of a Fire Blast. He is not there when you turn to look. (This time you are hit by a stray ember. Your own fault, really, you tell yourself.)

You free the Typhlosion from Red Eyes’ grip, and then the Articuno howls, snow whirling up around you. Summer takes off─she might be chasing after Red Eyes, you think, and you remember that last time she did that you almost died. She almost died, too.

Red Eyes leaves and his laughter rings in your ears and Articuno howls, a loud, low sound, that sends a pulse of fear ringing through you. The snow comes down in sheets. You cannot see the sky. 

The Sky Fortress rises from the ocean, awash with energy and something like curls of flame. You do not want to board it─know, already, that it will require something more than Staraptor, like Mount Layuda did. There’s ice in your bones, the air streaming past you too quickly, and you feel like you are falling once more.

Within it there is a skeleton memory: a body floating in a testing chamber, a magician turning the floor to the sky and stealing away Pichu, an old woman offering you tea and then threatening to push you to your death. (You have fallen once before.) Within it there is this: a doctor who plans for death, an admin who steals the successes of others.

You defeat Edward. On a whim you’d replaced all the Pokémon you’d captured with various evolutions of Eevee, and the Umbreon proves useful when it comes to fighting Mewtwo, who is so angry it leaves you feeling sick. Pichu is able to paralyse it once, twice, then you capture it─and then Purple Eyes makes it so much worse.

Because of course he does. And of course this time Mewtwo is stronger, and faster, and angrier, and you are just drained.

You do not remember how you win. What you do remember is this:

Falling. The floor feels like it has leapt out from under you. Your heart is stuck in your throat. Dolce Island is nothing but ruins; ruins and ash and, oh, you hope all the Pokémon got out alright. There is a half-remembered sigil in your mind’s eye, painted in green and gold, and you try to draw it out. Your hands are shaking.

It fails, once, and then again. There’s a worse shake now, because last time you’d seen this you’d been falling, and you’re falling again, and sometimes history repeats itself. You fail to draw out the symbol once again.

Only this time there is light, and the sun, and the golden warmth. This time: you are still falling, of course you are falling, but it feels like you are flying, too.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/silkensongs)


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